2nd Annual Ides of March Lecture
The Rockford Institute, publisher of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, presents
The Second Annual Ides of March Lecture on Democracy and Tyranny
“Something Rotten in the State of America”
a lecture by Prof. Frank Brownlow
Thursday, March 15, 2012, 6:00 P.M., at
The Rockford Institute 928 North Main Street Rockford, Illinois
The Event
Shakespeare’s three great “historical” tragedies, Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear, all show a perfectly nice country being hijacked by crooks, with a consequent subversion of all stan- dards of justice and a strongly implied failure of institutions. Is this not our present-day situation exactly? While the three plays each mirror some aspect of Shakespeare’s understand- ing of the condition of contemporary England, their political lessons are timeless. Whenever an urgent public crisis emerges, no one is better able to speak to it than the Bard of Avon.
Our Speaker
Frank Brownlow is Gwen and Allen Smith Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College, where he has taught since 1969. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham. He studied with the great Shakespeare scholar Kenneth Muir and spent three years at the Shake- speare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon. Among America’s top authorities on 16th-century England, Professor Brownlow is currently at work on a book about Queen Elizabeth’s chief enforcer, torturer, and personal friend, Richard Topcliffe.
Event Particulars
A buffet reception will follow the lecture.
Advance Admission
Individuals: $15.00
Couples: $25.00.
(Add $5.00 if paying at the door.)
Admission is payable at the door, but reservations are required. Last year’s Ides of March Lecture sold out. Reserve your space, or save by paying in advance with your credit card, by calling (815) 964-5053.
If you are traveling from out of town to attend this event, feel free to call the Institute for lodging recommendations.
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